Good Point, Anonymous

" Why are sales the marker of artistic excelence?"

Do you know? Because I don't. I'm just sitting in my room, innocently trying to study geology, when that whale of a question was poised on Frosted Flake's radio show. How am I supposed to concentrate on the ozone layer and river systems now with more interesting thoughts meandering on the perephrials of my mind?It's like that little brother that pokes you until you pay attention to him....fuck. So this is why I am dedicating a solid 6 minutes to thinking about this to get it out of my mind before i get back to the wonderful world of weathering rocks and rivers:

This was a reference to 50 cent betting with kanye west that he would retire as an 'artist' if his record didn't outsell kanyes.Kanye's album was titled " N*GGER", which doesn't exactly should 'grab me' from a Sam Goody shelf. So absurd situation aside, do sales really measure artistic excelence? Maybe. Things that involve more ingenuity,creativity, time and human effort seem to cost more. Like if the Sistine Chapel were for sale, it would cost a gillion euros, and that would be an acurate measure of its excelence. But I think the focus is less on how much it sold for, and more about how many it sold. 50 Cent is like a Big Mac: a cheap brand name that uses juicy imagery ( in the form of video vixons and beef patties, respectivly) to stimulate a humans deeper cravings ( of sex and food, respectivly) and leave them wanting more. And unless marketing is now synonymous with artistic excelence, I really doubt that sales has much to do with the quality of the product. Go ahead, call me a cynical sally. But how else do you explain the way the number 1 movies in the boxoffice are always really shitty, plot recycled duds produced by major film companies who spend 40% of the funcding on hiring A'ish list actors, 40% on advirtising and promoting, and 10% on anything else that makes a movie good? I didn't realize realize the paramount ( hah, pun intended) importance that marketing plays--it forms our opinions for us.And because most things are subjective, like artistic excelence, if we are convinced that the 50 cent album makes bethoveen look like linus from snoopy, then we buy his album and redefine the bar for what artistic excelence is.This is dangerous, hella dangerous.

I guess this entire debate leads back to the definition of 'art.' I guess it's a personal definition. If one defines it as accessible and transperant, than 50 cent would be a great artist. Personally, i think art is a window, gateway or portal to the experiance of another or a reflection or statement that responates within oneself that a person wrestles with to make meaning of the art and themself.Good art, that is. I think accsessibility is irrelevant to good art. 50 cent isn't even art, he's entertainment. He barely has a message. Oh except that you an find him in the club, if you need him. I really don't undersatnd some of these entertainers, but the way. If someone were to give me a microphone and the world was listening, I may mention sippin on bub in da club like once, but otherwise, there are other topics i would use my 'talent' , ability, and world attention towards. It's strange to me that someone wouldn't, that soemone who did work hard for fame would so quickly glamorize his struggles and normalize his newfound extravagance, instead of the otherway around to send a message.

So 50 can sell as much as he wants, i don't think it makes good art. It makes a good publicist, a following of sheeple, and sucking the tit of commodity culture.

lightbulbs

I've been alive for nearly 2 decades. Naturally, lots of stuff has crossed my mind. This book, A Dying Colonialism, has made me think of things that I've never thought of before--that didn't exist to me. I love it when that happens. Stuff like role of the doctor/patient relationship in the midst of a revolution is something that I wouldn't have even known to think about. When this happens, it gets me amped to keep on keepin on with the school buzzinasss.I know there is so much more I don't know, it's awesome.

A run down of the retreat this weekend: it was fun.

My personal cheer and jeer:

Jeer: I have a geology midterm, two psyc papers, and two quizes coming up in the 10 days chunk.
Cheer: it's been a really good week, so i have no reason to doubt that this coming week should be any different.

"responsibility"

I'm gone all weekend starting at 8 something am tomorrow. Again. Last weekend I had to leave at 7 something am on saturday, so i guess this is improvement. This isn't the most convenient weekend to leave with a few papers and a midterm and a few exams coming up, oh yeah and Halloween, but realistically, no weekend is really that convenient to take off. Point being, tonight I read a book about the Algerian Revolution wrote a reading response because I'm trying this new thing called balance, and I want my fun time to be purely fun timewith no stress attached. Anyway, the book turned out to be really interesting. My reading response isn't that interesting ,( are any reading responses interesting?) and the writing is crappy because its just a blackboard assignment but i think it's important stuff to be aware of, therefore:

(wait, ps, there is a couple screaming outside my door right now. aw,cute. they are officially the most irrational people i have ever heard. this is entertaining)

A Dying Colonialism by Frantz Fanon was, for many years, banned in France for it’s sympathetic tone towards the Algerian cause regarding the Algerian Revolution from France during the late 1950’s. After reading A Dying Colonialism, I see why the French would find it advantageous to restrict circulation of this book in their country in order to preserve their national ego as a proper and civilized nation. In a post-war context, I suspect that the French would not be too surprised to discover details of the Algerian Revolution that are usually associated with war: mutual violence, torture, death, prisoners of war, people consciously choosing their country over their lives, etc. The more surprising and shameful realization the French people would have come to from this book would not be the drastically unequal ratio of Algerian lives lost over French lives, but rather the attempts and methods by which the French aimed to forcefully acculturate the Algerians to French ways. Killing a person is much more impermanent than killing a culture.
A tactic of cultural domination that Fanon discusses which powerfully struck me is the way in which France attempted to use the Algerian women as tools, staking claim to their bodies and space as justification and for the French ‘civilized’ presence in Algeria:“ We want to make the Algerian ashamed of the fate that he metes out to women (pg. 38).” This supposed dreadful fate was, in part, a reference to the veil and seclusion. If France were to succeed in making the Algerian men feel guilty about this aspect of their culture, and moreover, the women want to attain the same exhibition as French women, then the Algerians would be in a vulnerable state, placed below the French pedestal. Fanon explains that the French figured out to control the Algerian women was to control Algeria, and they implemented both tangible and rhetorical means to achieve this goal. French men would no longer only invite Algerian male co-workers alone to dine with them and their French wife, they would insist that the Algerian wife came too. The purpose of this was to expose the Algerian wife to the French wife, who seemingly had more power through association with her husband, the boss, was unveiled and unconfined. An Algerian man then faced a juxtaposition: risking resisting this form of derogatory exploitation of his culture by not bringing his wife and the possibility of losing his job, or to bring his wife and foster a hierarchy which systematically gnawed at the legitimacy of his culture. Fanon describes the prior choice using gendered language, stating that by bringing the Algerian wife he would be “…prostituting his wife, exhibiting her, abandoning a mode of resistance (pg.40).”
Such strong gendered language is not to be taken lightly, but in this situation I think it effectively gets across the dynamic of using solely the body- not the character- of a woman for the satisfaction of a person other than that woman. Fanon again uses gendered language to describe the overlying function of the French domination in Algeria through women: “ Every veil that fell, every body that became liberated from the traditional embrace of the haik, every face that offered itself to the bold and impatient glance of the occupier, was a negative expression of the fact that Algeria was beginning to deny herself and was accepting the rape of the colonizer (pg. 42).”
Because Fanon’s use of gendered language is so bold and frequent, I have pondered why the French-Algerian dispute is described as a rape instead of a war. The French ignoring the Algerian’s saying ‘no’ to the French penetration of Algeria, France forcing Algeria to remain under it’s submission, the French making the Algerians feel guilty about their culture and customs to silence and manipulate them, and the French claiming symbolic license to the bodies of the Algerian women are all facets of this conflict I came up with which have a strong correlation with the concept of rape. Also, militarism (in this case, the French) is often emasculated and countries (in this case, Algeria) are often described as female, makes the concept of a military rape of a foreign nation clearer.
However, I’m not confidant that using the word ‘rape’ to illustrate the dynamic between Algeria and France is beneficial to either party, or completely accurate. Rape is an act motivated by aggression; the French rape of Algeria was motivated by economics, entitlement, and a strange, arrogant drive to ‘civilize’ the world. A more distinct contrast is that the active or passive form of resistance that a rape victim uses to escape, like fighting back or disassociating, are not successful in a rape; Fanon is not regarding the as the ‘attempted rape’ of Algeria. The Algerian people did resist the French presence actively and passively, through arms and through boycotts and veiling, and Algeria did achieve self-determination. To paint Algeria as a victim of rape is to undermine all of the hard-work and resistance efforts put forth to avoid a completed rape.
Frantz Fanon’s A Dying Colonialism has further helped me understand how nationalism and imperialism can play tug-o-war with women’s issues for their own personal gain.

fun

best night evvvvver. this semester.

Free write

There's a theory that if you practice 25 minutes of catharsis everyday, you'll be less stressed out and emotionally healtheir. It just so happens that i love free writes, just unsensored, unfilteredt houghts transposed onto paper. And the only thing more raw than a free write is a drunken free write, and given the evens of the night, I am about to do just that. While emmiting some stuff...becaues even though the personal is political-hence, this blog- too personal doesn't belong in cyberspace.Isn't it strange how much easier it is to share thoughts instead of feelings? I think so. I guess emotion has a certain element of vulnerability...and i guess my free write has begun:

Watching family guy and eating cookies and feeling good. Came home from siani scholars...( I DELEATED A GOOD PARAGRAPH OR TWO, SORRY ABOUT THE DISCONNECT).... There are such things as obligations, but it's compeltly obvious when someone does something for you from a place of duty or from of place of genuine altruism or desire. Which brings me to the question that an epiSOde of Freinds raised: is there such thing as a selfless good deed? I'm not sure. From an evolutionary standpoint, altruism only exists to benifit our own survival or the survival of our offsprings of species. And in that way, it's still selfish because the purpose is to ensure the existance of our own gene pool.But away from instancts and into concious motives, do we ever do anything for anyone else that doesn't in some way benifit ourselves? Tonight someone told me, and I've had freinds say similar things before, that he wants to help the world because he empathizes with the struggles of others who have less access to resources. Technically, helping them is helping alieviate our own empathy and concious about the unfair allocation of, well , everything in the world. It gets fuzzy if the movite is based on the self or on others. I'm not sure if getting satisfaction from a good deed nullifies the altruism of the deed and makes it selfish. But I'm not saying selfish is a bad thing whatsoever. I actually think selfish is a great thing, and if a person isn't selfish they are screwing themselves over because there is noone in the world who will put you before themself 100%. I've thought long and hard ( thats what she said) about the reasons why i've volunteered and been a quazi-activist for so long. I dont think I'm more altruistic than the next average joe, maybe more empathitic, but not kind. One self psycho-analyzing theory: I see injustice in the world. It makes me uncomfortable and angry because I have been an underdog and felt controlled, manipulated,cooerced,had my intelligence underminded and my disgnity insulted and been disrespected ingeneral, like many other people. I know that things that are unpredictable and uncontrollable are more stressful, so i empathize more with those causes, and try and gain what i percieve as some ontrol over the status of the situation through activism. By participating in a form of resistance, the anger i originally felt turns into empowerment. Instead of being alone, activism sourounds you with other people who care about the same thing/s which is relieving and takes the pressure off me. Why do i feel pressure? because being a bystander is being guilty. And why is guilt uncomfortable? Well, according to prof.Madigan, guilt is one of the four universal social emotions ( along with shame,pride and embarrasement) and it helps me mend social relationships. but why do i care about mending social relationships with people i've never met and never will meet? Is it some internal subconcious animal drive to perpetuate my own genes and species? Mmm maybe. So little of what I do is actually me and more of how I'm wired and evolved to function as an animal. But this is where it gets foggy,if i AM wired to care about others, why aren't most people wired like that? And moreover, if i am programmed to care about survival, why do i have so many self-destructive habbits? And where the hell does this notion of justice come from? Honestly, it's so strange. I know that I am programmed to see symmetry as beauty, but can symmetry translate to equality and beauty translate to good? The idea of individual morality makes sence to me, but group and cultural moarlality is just weird, and so arbitrary, and puts a lot of stress on people to supress their inclinations that deviate from the norm which probably are outletted in self destructive or aggressive ways. It's okay for a man to have sex with an 18 year old girl but not gir of 17 year 364 days. In America we live in a consumer culture where almost anything can be used as a commodity to gain from. Except for a woman's body. The one thing that we cannot seperate ourselves from we cannot sell, but i gues it's that exact reason why selling one's body is so much more painfu and invasive than selling anything else, because you can't get away from your own body, like living in a room with post-it-notes covering the walls with horrifying memories and experiances.I guess the consensus is people are not chatel. It's illigal to smoke weed but not illigal to drink coffee which makes complete sence from the vantage point of economic productivity. Come ot think, i think most of our laws are based off of economic productivity and not what is actually good for the people. If making smoking cigarettes illigal for people under 18 is truely based off a genuine care for the wellness of our great nation and not off of avoiding having spend so much more on health care, than why isn't the government as concere with the hole in the ozone layer which is projected to cause 300,000 more cases of skin cancer in America if left untreated in the next few decades? And the FDA is possibly the most fucked up administration in the entire nation.The funny thing is that this topic perfectly circles back to my original thought about the motive for people giving a shit about others. Wheather it's selfish or not, it's still there, which is more than i can say for many people in power of many companies and countries.I feel like there is a socio-economic bell curve effect when it comes to caring. On the bottom left side is the poor and the bottom working class who are lower on the curve because they are the people who have the need to be cared for and don't have the resources/energy to worry about others before tending to their own needs; the top part of the curve where it escaltes to maximum caring potential and then starts to dip back down again is constitued of the middle and upper middle class who have their own basic needs tended to so they can afford to be concered about others and they aren't so removed from the concept of hardship that they're able to empathize; and at the bottom of the bell curve are the rich, who have 7 cars and everything is private and fenced off they their detachment from society is physically represented and they make their money off of the rest of us and they can say they care about the poor and even throw company walk-a-thons for Darfur or adopt-a-family in teh office at christmas but the notion of equality is in no way eternalized and they have maids come and clean their houses 6 days a week and they don't even know which spanish speaking contry she comes from, and they don't care. These are sweeping generalizations, and of course there are plenty of poor people who spend their paycheck on charity and rich philanthropists who revolutionize and reconstrut the world in wonerful ways. BUT that is just a trend i see. When i started writing this i was really drunk and now im really sober. strange. this will be interesting to read in the morning.

Cheers and Jeers

Every sunday night, or monday morning depending on my mood, I write the weekly Women's Student Assembly Newsletter to send to our listserve. In every issue there is a section I like to call 'Cheers and Jeers' where I find a positive and negative event in women's news worldwide. I probably spend half tihe time writing the newsletter looking for quality cheers and chees, and this past week I came across a cheer and a jeer that were both jaw-dopping:

Cheer: Jordan's Queen Rania launched a $1 million project to fight violence against women. It aims to provide medical assistance and counseling to abused women and to raise public awareness. Eighty-seven percent of Jordanian women believe their husbands are justified in using physical or verbal abuse, according to a 2002 demographic and health survey."What's important now is that we're moving from theory to action," said Asma Khader, head of the Jordanian National Commission for Women. "The main obstacle is changing people's perceptions. But this is exactly what is needed to confront this practice.”

HUGE Jeer: Megan Williams, 20, was held captive and tortured for a week inside a West Virginia mobile home. She was forced to eat animal waste, stabbed, choked, sexually assaulted and repeatedly slurred for her African American ethnicity. Her captors--who include a mother and son, a mother and daughter, and two other men--have been arrested; the federal government is considering whether they will be prosecuted for hate crimes.

I'm withholding my commentary because I don't even know where to begin.In other less noteworthy news, I had a somewhat deep conversation today about what we find sexually/romantically attrative in people. I hadn't thought about this in a while, but the most important things i ended up saying are nothing, nothing like the qualities in the people i deal with in, um, casual, random romantic episodes. In fact, they're opposite. I don't know what that means.If i were to spend time time and energy to a real relationship, they'd have to be worth it. Funny and passionate about something, anything and not complelty apathetic. I know that's asking a lot ( ...sad) so color me out of luck. At least for the time being.

You snooze you Lose

I really haven't slept much recently. But my waking hours have been more than stimulating enough to keep me going. Random Events of My Life:

Saturday: From 7:45 am to 5:00 pm I was on a Geology field trip for my Planet Earth class, bussing around, stopping to investigate different fault lines, rocks, unconformities, folds, and what not. Our bus driver was a noteworthy guy, an asian immigrant who took pictures and videorecorded us..when we weren't looking...whatever keeps ya entertained, i guess. At the time the trip was a little bit long, but interesting, and definitly good to get out of the city setting.
Sunday: Another required field trip, but this one had more free stuff, so it was way better. I went to a jewish bathing house for women after their periods, played some bingo, ate lunch with steven spielburgs mom for free, and got 25$ to buy alcohol and cookies for our next clas on wednesday. Not too shabby. I also had a WSA meeting afterwards, which are also kinda loopy and entertaining. Fill in the gaps on sat. and sun. with library time.
Monday (today): In my women and revolution in the ME clas we watched part of a really impactful film on the Algerian revolution in which i sympathized with suicide bombers. I'm really excited to see more of it on Wednesday. After I went to Pink 101 and met Chrstina Ricci, heard her speak, shmoozed a bit, remembered why it's so important to raise awareness on sexual violence,etc. Now im studying for a midterm. Today was a good day.

I've got the power!

Consider the following story:

A woman is strutting to her office in high heels, red lipstick, and a form fitting professional skirt and blouse. She feels confidant, sucessful and powerful. Upon entering her office, a group of construction workers whistle at her, and one yells what he'd like to do to her.

In this scenario, who has the power? The woman, for being able to evoke such strong arousal reponses from the oppisite sex? (Afterall, form-fitting clothing and lipstick was her choice. ) Does he men have the power as the vouyers who can deduct the woman as a whole to her bare physical state, replicate that image in their minds, and have the poetic license with it to do what they please?Is there any truth to a woman 'asking for sexual harrassement' by the way she ornaments her body? Would this scenario be more unacceptabile if she were in sweat pants and not emphasizing her body? If she were a child?

Just something i've been thinking about.

अंग्री

I AM SEETHING WITH ANGER. i AM AT LEAVEY LIBRARY. THERE ARE SIGNS ALL OVER POSTED "TAKE YOUR PURSE WHEREVER YOU GO TO PREVENT THEFT." GREAT. i WENT TO THE BATHROOM. I TOOK MY PURSE. I CAME BACK FROM THE BATHROOM NO MORE THAN 2 MINUTES LATER, AND SOME MAN-OBVIOUSLY NOT A STUDENT OR AFFILIATE OF THE UNIVERSITY- IS SITTING IN MY CHAIR. WITH MY DOCUMENTS I'D BEEN WORKING ON FOR OVER AN HOUR OF SOLID STUDY TIME CLOSED. AND NOT SAVED. AND HE WAS GOOGLE-ING GUITARS.

WHO THE FUCK GOES TO A COMPUTER WITH 4 DOCUMENTS OPEN, PUSHES "DON'T SAVE" WHEN YOU EXIT OUT OF THEM, AND THEN LIE TO THE PERSON WHO COMES BACK AND CONFRONTS YOU ABOUT IT. HE SAYS THAT THERE WAS NOTHING ON THE COMPUTER. THERE WERE REMINANTS OF MY WORK ON THE COMPUTER, STILL LOGGED INTO MY NAME. HE DIDN'T EVEN LOG OUT. AND NOW I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING I JUST DID, AGAIN. I HAVE VERY,VERY,VERY LIMITED TIME TO STUDY. I HAVE NO TIME TO SOCIALIZE. I THOUGHT I COULD GO OUT TO DINNER TONIGHT WITH FRIENDS BUT WHOOPS, ILL BE HERE FOR LONGER THAN I THOUGHT. WHAT A FUCKING PRICK. I DON'T KNOW WHY THIS IS MAKING ME SO INTENSLEY ANGRY BUT IT HURTS AND I WANT TO SCREAM. BUT ITS A LIBRARY. SO I CAN'T. FUCK.

What? My name is

STUDY BREAK!

Dictionary.com is like my old trusty running sneakers I've had since my freshman year--of high school. Wikipedia is the sexy version of dictionary.com. But when shit goes down, who would chose designer pumps over their ol' sneakers? Only an Idiot. If you need to make an emergency call, only a moron would reach for a cell phone over a land line. So when I let my mind wander through an infinite number of rabbit holes tonight from overdosing on caffine and study guides, it's not suprising i ended up appeasing my inquiry at dictionary.com.

Oh, what's in a name?Honestly, I've never been fond of mine. Emily. It's common, it's average, it's boring, it's docile. Emily. It doesn't roll off the tounge. It takes effort, like swallowing peanut-butter. It's the eyesore, plaid Scottish print of Names, traditional but not proper,sufficient but not elegant. Painfully generic, defining adequacy. Emily neither soothes the ear or pleases the tounge--it is white noise. It is the Wonder Bread in Caucasian Culture, the 21st century Jane Doe of the American Sheeple. There were 6 Emily's in my 6th grade class and about 9,800 babies named Emily for every 1 million births in the US the year I was born. It lacks creativity, uniqueness and orginallity, and apperantly, so do the parents of Emily's nationwide.

So I somehow justified wasting time on an internal rant instead of studying for a good 10 minute chunk of valuable time, when I realized: I don't even know what Emily means. Maybe it's something cool, like scottish for female warrior or latin for balloon. Dictionary.com came to the rescue, and now I finally know what my name means.

"industrious."

And i hate it even more. What a sly,backhanded way for fate to tell me to get back to work.

Holler, Holler, I'm a Sinai Scholar

I'm in a class where an Orothodox Rabbi teaches us the 10 commandment.

Given the content of the class, not being a god-fearing gal is semi problematic. If the ten commandments are ultimate truths because they were supposedly bestowed upon mankind from 'The Ultimate Truth' (god), and I don't think that happened, than learning about the commandments doesn't seem to have any utility towards my own understanding of morality. I don't think morals can be inherited; I hope I would not base my morality off of what somebody told me to think; and accepting the premise of God as truth in order to discuss the commandments is getting more irritating as the weeks go on.

We took a class poll: who does not belive in God? In a room of 20 other college students, I was shocked when my hand was the only one that was raised. In a room full of Jews and an orthodox Rabbi, I will not admit to beliving in God. Why? In that context, 'beliving in god' comes with a bag full of connotations and assumptions. I don't think God created anything, spoke to any prophet, chose any set of people and then led them through any desert. I don't think God can be described as having any human characteristics like man, vindictive, benevolent or has any jurisdiction. My understanding of God cannot be found in religion or hears and responds to prayer.

To me, God is most synonymous with the word balance. The way that an untampered ecosystem can be absolutly balanced, the way the anatomy of the human body is incredibly complex and any female has the capability to (re)produce it naturally, the way that everything in the entire universe is both dependent upon and defined by everything else, that ultimate balance, that is what god is to me. So you see the discrepancy between the Rabbi's and my own definitions. And how difficult it is to digest this class without exhausting myself as Devils Advocate can be.

Do the 10 commandments even pertain to me? I'm not sure...I have my own moarls and beliefs, and don't feel particularly compelled to change them just 'cause "god says so." Granted, a lot of them are good ideas. Don't commit adultry. That's smart. And don't lie. Yeah, I'm all for being as genuine as possible. I've been raised in a Judeo-Christian culture and these messages have been embeded in the moral foundation of every institution, and held as truths to most people , so naturally, there is a lot of overlap between my views and those views. I guess in the end, it's just inherently interesting to learn more about what has shaped western human culture for so long. Knowing more about it can't hurt me, I'm just not convinced it can help me either.

I Am So Cool, By Default

Today the Daily Trojan ran an article about a blog, written anonymously, dedicated to exploting the seedy underbelly of USC undergraduates. If you've seen Gossip Girl, it is exactly like that. If not, than imagine one of your sterotypical blonde female friends in Annenburg who aspires to be the next Anderson Cooper but after graduation realizes that her stylistic prose is lacking the inter-cultural intellect and insight that real journalism demands and so she wisely plays to her strengths and starts writing about rumors and shoes. It turns out, most girls in America feel deeply touched and understood in the wide world of rumors and shoes, and she becomes a bestseller. That is about all the literary merit I'll give Gossip Girl. So imagine that.

Out of curiosity I checked out this blog at www.uscene.blogpot.com . To my suprise, it wasn't about glamerous people; it was mostly about people I know. And for the most part, people I ejoying being aquaitences with but by no means live lifes that are extrordinary that I must track in my free time. Joe smith was seen at the 9-0!? Sally was dacing at AEPi!? Really?!

The entire thing just makes me sad because if you're going to life vicariously though other people's lives, i could provide a laundry list of USC students who are involved in interesting causes and lead this campus in their spare time. And i would further argue that those are the people who are going to be making real headlines someday. I don't even think it's an issue of covering the 'beautiful people', because at USC, that is everybody. And I don't think it's an issue of covering the juice of the after-dark scene, because again, that includes everyone with a pulse at this school.

If you ask me, people are attracted to reality tv, celebrity blogs, and tabliods as a method of escaping their (in comparrison) mundane lives.But at some point, those mediums become less a source of entertainment and more of a standard of what is to be modeled by celebrities and emulated by the celeb-wannabees. And in communities, like USC, which have a population with the resources to make their reality a wonderland, they do just that.Down to the dirty details of blogging about eathothers personal lives. I think this phenomena also reflects the degredation of the interpersonal relationship. None of the information shared is more personal than context and body language, that any average Peeping Tom could pick up on. People nowadays are too smart for trust; I actually don't think people even trust themselves to be able to handel their emotions so they just supress and distract, indulging in a numb, commodity culture.

I wish people knew the kind of cool things that are going on around campus everyday . If only once or twice a month they indulged their minds instead of their ego's, I think our society would be on a road towards recovery. So here's my effort. Below are things I deem worthy of going to within the next few days at SC. Have fun:

Wednesday:
*Ending Anti-Semitism with Ken Marcus
*2nd Nature's Facebook Improv Show
Thursday:
*Save 2nd Base, a rally for the awareness of breast cancer
* Women's Student Assembly general meeting;debriefing of Period! by G.C.;shinanigans
*composer of et/harry potter/indiana jones/jaws John Williams preforming
* A Month in the Country
* FMLA meeting

Psy-conspiracy?

Studying for two tests in one chunk of time makes the information run together.Unfortunatly, it it isn't geology and women and revolution, because any factual hybrid between those two would be bizarre. By peicing tid bits together from my two psyc classes, however, a really funky puzzle is starting to form a picture:

Statistically, an individual is just ask likly to be a lesbian as they are to be schizofrenic as they are to be anorexic ( about 1%); and the odds are the same for bipolar disorder and bulimia( 1-5%). This means that in a room of 100 people, there statistically would be a lesbian, a schizofrenic, an anorexic, a few bulimics, and 1.5 bipolar people. Wow. The moral of the story: watch the derogatory remarks people, because you never know who you're talking to or what they've been through.

By the way, this link is supposedly sopposed to help match You with Your Candidate in the 2008 election through a point system on how many of 'the issues' you and said candidate agree on. i did it. It was quazi entertaining, quazi poli-tainment. Check it out for yourself:
http://www.wqad.com/Global/link.asp?L=259460

Parents Just Don't understand

Today is nothing like 'back in their day', so I wish they'd stop comparing their half-fabricated-nostalgic-flashbacks to my reality.

" Workstudy was fun! I was in the mail room, and got to deliver my peers packages which made them happy."-my dad

Mmmkay. Let's investigate how dated this sentence is. First of all, people nowadays do not get excited for mail because new mail comes every .5 seconds clogging our usc.edu accounts. As far as physical mail goes, it's alright-minus having to carry the package up 4 flights of stairs.Clicking my keyboard is so much easier than climbing my staircase. I'd also like to point out the different pressures of workstudy. He workstudied occasionally to have some extra cash in college. I workstudy to make sure I don't live in a box the day after i graduate. The stakes are a little higher.He worked nearly every week, i work nearly everyday.

"When I was in college, we went to nearly every game."- my mom

I. Wish. Do you know how many games just happen to convieniently fall a few days before a bundle of midterms?

"I rememberbeing nervous to pick my major back in the day."- both parents

Them picking their major back in the 70's is pretty equivilant to me picking a great internship or research opportunity now. I need not only a major, but a minor in a completly different feild; not only a minor, but interships; not only internships, but leadership experiance in organizations at school to attain said internships.

I am so tired of hearing people say that college is the last carefree time in a persons life. We are expected to do so much, and not only that, we are given constant criticism by the perpetual grading and rating of our intelect and abilities in comparison to our peers.i would say that is a little more harsh than the real world.

Right now, I'm writing a reading response for my abnormal psychology class.Do I have to? No. Then why am I? because I am tired of being told that I am a 12.5/15 when i know that i know psychopathology better than a B.For instance, this paper probably has nothing to do with the grade and more to do with me prooving something else to myself, like I have control or something ego-like, like that.

This stress is really making me physically sick. I'm going to go hide away in a acave with bin-laden, lemme know when midterms are over.

Term, Mid

Every night has it's designated purpose.Thursdays are obviously for The Office (although I think that The Row may disagree), and mondays are for realizing how far behind you are in you reading, slightly tweaking out, and then blowing it off to do something better. but unfortunatly, tonight is not Thurday or Monday: it is Tuesday night. And Tuesday night, my friends, are no fun. That is a fact. The proof? The most exciting part of these past few hours has been taking a break to blog.

Right now I'm studying for my midterm tomorrow morning in Women and Revolution in the Middle East. Do you know how hard it is to bullshit names like Aisha al-Taymuriyya and Saiza Narabi, and the intricacies of the colonial feminist stanceon the veil in the late 1800's? Hence, I must study.

I cannot decide--my life experiances and lenses either make me a perfect candidate for this class, or a recipie for disaster.I'm a jew: we are learning about arab and palestinean perspectives; I went to Egypt and Israel this summer, and witnessed the exact opposite from everything my teacher is saying; and I constantly use a western feminist lens, which is debilitating when studying feminism indigenous to eastern cultures. On all of these things, I am soo close, but no cigar.

But who am I to complain, really? At the end of the day, literally, I would much rather be studying the struggle to balance muslim-Egyptian identity with western values than...physics. Or math. Or anything that has a definite anwser.

When I get restless, I tend to create and contemplate would you rather questions.This one is a doozy, I've been thinking about it for at least 20 minutes:
Would You Rather: not be able to bear children, or have a child who was a bear?

too much god stuff

I am too busy. Things I used to enjoy aren't relaxing or enjoyable anymore because in the back of my mind I know I always have more shit to do. Three jobs, two student organizations, full course load, appointments, and social life is too much for me to balance. I don't know what to do. Meh.Unhappy.

A Fringe Benifit of Guilt.What is Zionism?

One of my roomates is a modern orthodox jew. Dismiss any connotations of long skirts,quiet demeanor, and dating men with long,bushy beards. That's not her style. Her political zeal to protect Israel, sound morals, community connections, traditions and upbringing all link her box to orthodoxy. It's incredible to be close to someone with such a strong spiritual connection. For you visual learners out there, think of it like this: her spiritual fire is a burning bush, whereas mine is a cigarette lighter flame.

We've gotten in many debates about Israel, the Israeli-Palestinean conflict and Judaism. Today, I made a boo-boo and refered to the Palestinean territories in Israel as Palestine when we were talking about Teachers Without Borders. Woops. She pointed out it's technically Israel. Maybe so, but maybe not... the Palestineans who live there, and who have lived there for generations probably refer to it as Palestine. We're both right.

This summer I spent a month in the Middle East, doin the damn thang. Between that trip and a Jewish History course I took last semester, I have reached a conclusion: I am not a Zionist.

Why is seemingly every Jew is zionist by default. I don't wanna put political words in any Jews mouth, but it seems like an emotional ( not logical) decision. The way I understand it, zionism was a socialist/nationalist movement which advocated 'un-otherizing' the jews in attempt to eradicate anti-semitism. In theory, normalizing Jews with their own country, having them work in every profession from president to banker to house painter to hooker, would make the jews like any other nation. But zionism has NOT gotten rid of anti-semitism...it seems to me like if anything, it has heightened it. I think that seems like proof that zionism didn't serve it's purpose. The jews were in diaspora and then they 'came home' to israel, thus sending the palestineans into diaspora....I just don't think that's fair, and actually, quazi-hypocritical. DON"T GET ME WRONG. I love israel, spending time there this past summer was amazing, and israeli people and culture are really special.

I have this strange guilt about not being a zionist. I think it's because I know what everybody in my family history went through just so the next generation could be jewish, and a little more free. On both sides of my family: surviving pogroms in russia, having nazis blow up their factory and the family splitting up right before WWII leaving the women to be sent to concentration camps and die and the men ( my great-grandfather included) ending up seperated forever on 3 different contenints were experiances just within the pat 2 centuries. Who knows what before then. And here I am, only a few generations later, not mentally agreeing with the ideaology which established a Jewish homeland. I don't really know what to do about this mental-emotion tug-o-war. I think it's kinda like if your friend does something shitty, you respect them and don't activly exascerbate the situation. Well, Jews, good ol' friends, I'll leave it at this: sharing is caring. Jews: our people spent the past 2,000 years out of our 'homeland' under the rule and at the mercy of foreign nations. In 1948 we gained indepence at the cost the palestineans independence.Now they are like we were, under foreign rule. That situation sucks, and we know it. Looking at this perdicament ratoinally-not as a Jew, or a Devils Advocatist, the state would ideally incorporate the palestineans as well,either as onen functional nation which has adequeate representation in most major institutions, or a two state solution.

Now, back to my geology midterm...

Is Buddah the new Burbury?

As long as I have existed, fads have existed. Gotta love those fads,when everybody simultaneously decides that something -usually obscure and random-is actually really hip. I'm blogging right now, that's fad'ish right?

There are some pretty strange cultural fads: reality tv, furby's, pogs, wearing a velvety material called valour, etc. But by far, the strangest of all the fads are the religous fads.Since when are people's core beliefs and principals so flexible they can change on a whim to match the flavor of the month? In middleschool, I remember how cool it was for the christian kids and kids who celebrated christmas ( is there a difference in Portland?) to go to church at least 3 times a week. Jesus was , in fact, their homeboy--the Urban Outfitter shirt did not lie.

Come my high school years, Madonna popularized Kaballah.And suddenly, kabbalah was cool.Funny thing though: if you would have asked any newly established kaballah-head what it actually was, the conversation would go like this:
Skeptic:So, you're into this new kaballah thing, huh?
Sheep: Oh yeah! It's really great.
Skeptic: You don't say...so, will you explain to me what kaballah actually is?
Sheep: It's Jewish mysticism, you know, what Madonna does.
Skeptic: Jewish mysticism, now what exactly does that entail?

And the conversation would be worthless from there. Had the sheep known that jewish mysticsm was an expanded theory of the creation of the world in which is best described via diagram, I wonder if they would still have subscribed to it and adopted that label. Since the founding of Jewish mysticism there was the evolution of this little thing, um, science they call it, which makes it hard for me to believe that many people who are born and raised in modern America honestly and truely feel like Kaballah acuratly dipicts their own take on the worlds creation. And if digesting that story literally isn't enough of a task, the whole story doubles as a metaphor and used as a guiding lens for life. Maybe I don't give Madonna's fans enought imaginative credit, i dunno.

Now, church is out, kaballah is out, but zen buddhism is in, In, IN! This translates into many people quoting the buddah(on facebook), doing yoga (to get more 'bendy' if ya know what i mean), and nonchalantly claiming you're kinda buddhist while eating a Big Mac. No, people. No. Simplifying Zen Buddhism into the concepts of peace and relaxation and meditation is false. Buddhism is so mch more layered,ritualistic, and supernatural than that.

On that note, I'm watching The Office (again) and going to bed. Humph.